Around September 24, 1860

In this day and age, newspapers rarely print fiction. Of course, there is the occasional magical story written by a third grade class that appears every once a week in the Arts and Entertainment section of the paper, but for the most part, fictional stories of real substance are not published in newspapers anymore. This was not the case in the 1800's. Appearing in The Valley Star each week was...

Fashion in the years following the Civil War was very different from years prior. More cotton and more efficient technology meant larger production and more variety for shoppers. Clothes were expressive and a status show to the public. The expansion of the railroads also made more in style clothing more readily accessible to people from all areas of the nation. While style began to spread across...

The capture of the slave ship Eriewas a very jubilant moment for Mr. Seys, the United States agent for recaptured Africans. "It did my heart good," he said, "to hear the shout of exultation and the expressions of delight visible on every countenance." The ship was residence to 897 slaves. From the foul odor of feces to the rapid spread of unknown diseases, this ship was in no...

Less than a year before the Civil War spread destruction throughout the state of Virginia, a heated exchange between two Democrats indicated the sharp divide that split the party. In the election of 1860, the Democratic vote was split between three candidates, John Bell, Stephen Douglas, and John Breckinridge. During a formal debate between Gen. George Blow, a Douglas Democrat, L.H. Chandler, a...

One of the largest cities in the South, and conveniently located as a port city, Charleston in the 1850s was in a prime position to compete with Atlanta and New Orleans as the center for commerce in the South. And on November 1, 1860, Charleston celebrated a huge commercial step forward with the completion of the Savannah-Charleston railroad. The Charleston News and Courier commemorated the event...

It was the final opportunity to influence voters before the 1860 presidential election. The Raleigh Register printed A Last Appeal for its readers to cast their votes for John Bell and Edward Everett in its final edition before the election. Bell, whose motto the paper printed as the Constitution must be maintained, the Union must be preserved, and the Laws must be enforced in all...

A Charleston resident flipping through the Charleston News and Courier on November 7, 1860, to find the results of the presidential election the day before had to give more than a cursory glance to find what he was looking for. On a side column on the first page, stuck right in the middle of the results of several other individual states, the News and Courier mentioned, almost...

Abolitionism led to the failure of many lucrative Northern businesses. This was the assumption made by one advertisement of the Red Flag Store, whose proprietor had recently purchased quality Ready-Made Clothing from Pumperle, Geven & Co. following their bankruptcy. The store, like many others, had been shut down and its workers made unemployed. These stores had attracted business mainly from Southern...

The Republicans of the northern states ignored all threats from the South regarding the idea of secession when the rumors regarding secession began to circulate. In some cases they took false hope that the only real threat to secede came from the state of South Carolina. Statements from a small town central Pennsylvania newspaper, The Democratic Watchman, affirmed that it was not possible,...

The South was up in arms. On November 23, 1860, the Richmond Daily Dispatch reported an account from the New York Journal of Commerce about the manufacturing and selling of "Arms to the South." Before directly quoting the New York Journal of Commerce, the Richmond editor mentioned that the makers and sellers of arms were perhaps the only ones "gathering any advantage from the present crisis."...